


The Other Nelson, & Murdock

by Eledhwen



Series: Whose secret is it anyway? [5]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal, Post-Season/Series 03, Theo works stuff out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 03:12:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17973380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eledhwen/pseuds/Eledhwen
Summary: Theo sat back to think about Matt Murdock. To really think about Matt, in isolation from Foggy, which felt weird.Nelson, Murdock & Page have moved into the office above Nelson's Meats, and Theo is finding more out about his brother's best friend.





	The Other Nelson, & Murdock

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a few suggestions for identity reveals to continue this series, and DJ Clawson's suggestion was the plot bunny which bit most eagerly. Here is Theo Working Stuff Out.

Theo hadn’t always got on with his brother. It was hard being not only the younger sibling but also the one who ended up running a butcher’s shop, while Foggy went off to Columbia and started dressing in fancy suits and spouting legal jargon. But they’d never been enemies, and they’d always forgiven each other if they fell out. It hadn’t taken Theo any time at all, really, to offer Foggy and his friends a place to work when they needed it.

Besides, he liked Foggy’s friends. Matt Murdock had practically been a second brother since the first Thanksgiving Foggy brought him home from university. They were very different – Matt was quiet where Foggy was loud, drily witty where Foggy was ebullient, impeccably polite where Foggy was not – but Theo knew that Matt would defend Foggy to the hilt, if it came to it. He valued that.

Karen was a newer friend, and Theo’s feelings for her were more complicated. He liked her, as a person, but he couldn’t quite separate his like for her from the fact he found her pretty hot. And there was more complication, because he was sure that both Matt and Foggy, in their separate ways, fancied Karen too, even though Foggy was in deep with Marci Stahl.

Despite that he wasn’t about to kick them out of the shop. There was space on the second floor and the flow of clients coming to the law firm wouldn’t be bad for business. With the loan still to be paid off, more customers could not hurt.

The first week was, nevertheless, awkward. Foggy and Matt and Karen tiptoed carefully around Theo and the shop staff, setting up their office and meeting a few clients. Theo offered them bits of food and tried to make it clear that they couldn’t really disturb the shop. He made sure, too, that things like chairs got put back where they came from so that Matt wouldn’t trip over them on his way in.

Foggy was grateful, and showed it in small ways like bringing in coffee, inviting Theo to join them for beers after work, and offering to close up if Nelson, Murdock & Page were working late. Karen was grateful too, and never failed to be cheerful to Theo, the staff or their customers if she was passing through. She even offered to help behind the counter one day when someone was off sick, cheerfully revealing her parents used to run a diner.

Matt … Matt, thought Theo, was Matt. Obviously he couldn’t help in the diner and it was difficult to juggle coffees when you were already juggling a bag and a cane, but he was neat and tidy and scrupulously polite, as ever.

Sometimes, when coming up the stairs bringing sandwiches to the law firm, Theo thought he heard Matt and Foggy’s raised voices, but they were always friendly enough when he actually reached the room. He decided not to ask – he knew they’d argued over something, that was why Foggy had taken the job at the big Midtown firm, after all – but they were partners again now. That was what mattered.

Nelson, Murdock & Page had been in the office above the shop for a couple of weeks and Theo was in early to do a bit of stocktaking. He was startled when the door opened, forgetting he’d left it unlocked, but reassured when he saw it was only Matt. Matt, with a line of steristrips on his cheek, not hidden by his glasses.

“Jesus, Matt, what happened?” Theo asked.

Matt paused, the tap of his cane halting, and one hand came up to his cheekbone. “This? Stupid. I tripped up the stairs in my block.”

“Up the stairs?”

“I know, it’s ridiculous.” Matt looked abashed, head angled downwards. “Was trying to carry my groceries and got tangled in my cane.” He fiddled with the handle. “It’s fine. Just a scratch.” He nodded at Theo, and carried on up the stairs.

A week later, there was another bruise. A few days on, and Matt turned up with a limp. Theo could not remember his brother’s friend ever being this clumsy at college, and he found a moment to draw Foggy aside and ask him.

“He has got a bit accident-prone,” Foggy admitted, fidgeting. “Distracted or something.”

“It doesn’t seem good,” Theo said.

“I’ll talk to him,” Foggy promised, but Theo was sure something was off. Maybe Foggy knew something. Maybe Matt was self-harming.

Later on there were raised voices again from upstairs. Theo couldn’t quite hear what was said, but the thought of Foggy and Matt fighting again made him uncomfortable. He avoided going anywhere near the office for the rest of the day, and managed to be busy when each of them left – separately. Theo did, however, notice that Matt was clearly in a mood or something, because he hadn’t even bothered unfolding his cane when he walked out of the door. He spent five minutes worrying about it, and then a customer came in and distracted him and he quite forgot.

There was a birthday party at the weekend – a friend Theo had made through basketball. Pizza, and then a bar, and then a club. He was quite tipsy by the end of the night, but not so far from home that it wasn’t walkable, and it was a nice, mild evening. He hummed a little to himself as he walked along, attention not really on anything in particular, but even so he couldn’t fail to be jolted out of his good mood when he was jostled by someone passing the other way and his wallet and phone snatched from his jeans pockets.

“Hey!” Theo said, and then “hey!” again. He launched into a run, chasing down the thief. The man glanced back, took a left, and dodged right across the empty street into an alleyway. Theo followed, his heart pounding and his stomach sloshing from too much alcohol.

But he was too late when he hit the alley. Not because the thief had gone, but because the thief was flat out on the ground, groaning, with a dark figure standing over him.

“Uh,” said Theo, intelligently. He blinked, and looked again. No, that definitely was the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen over the unconscious body of the man who’d stolen his wallet. “He, um, stole my stuff,” Theo added, in case the Devil decided he was a target for hitting too.

“You okay?” the Devil asked, his voice low and raspy.

“I’m fine. Can I … um, grab my things?” Theo said.

The Devil nodded, and Theo bent down, got his wallet and phone and backed away again. “Thanks. For, you know, knocking him out.”

“It’s what I do.” The Devil backed away a few steps. Theo realised this was too good an opportunity to turn down.

“Hey. You know my brother, right? Franklin Nelson? And his law partner, Matthew Murdock?”

The Devil hesitated. “I’ve come across them.”

“I’m Theo. Theo Nelson,” Theo said. “I just wanted to say – if my brother ever gets hurt, because of you, I’ll be mad. And I’ll be mad too, if Matt gets hurt either.”

The Devil nodded once. “Noted. I’ll make sure they stay safe.”

Theo returned the nod. “So. Um. Thanks, again.”

He watched as the Devil faded away into the darkness, and turned to continue his walk home.

On Monday, Theo took some cold cuts up to the office and paused before going back to the shop.

“Guess who I met Saturday night?” he said.

Foggy shrugged. “No idea, little bro. Weren’t you out with Nick?”

“After that,” said Theo. “Daredevil! Your best vigilante pal.”

Foggy stuttered.

“We’ve had a couple of bits of information from him, that’s all,” Matt said. “I’d hardly call him a pal. Karen might stretch to buddy.”

Karen popped her head out of her office. “Too generous and you know it, Matt,” she said. “Casual acquaintance, at best.”

“And I could tell you very little,” Matt added, “as I’ve never seen the guy. Obviously.” He tilted his head towards Foggy. “Do you need some water, Fog? Sounds like you’ve swallowed salami the wrong way.”

Theo thumped his brother on the back, and Foggy recovered his composure. “Yeah. Salami,” he said. “How did you run into Daredevil?”

Theo told them, reassuring Foggy that he himself had not been hurt (but the thief had). Foggy ate some more salami and relaxed a bit.

“Sounds like you were lucky he was there,” said Karen, from her doorway. “I wonder how he found you.”

Matt’s hand hovered over the plate of cold cuts, and he picked up a piece of Parma ham with surprising accuracy. “Maybe he heard Theo yelling at his thief,” he suggested. “Glad you’re all right, Theo. And have your stuff back. This is great ham, by the way.”

The office phone rang, and Theo used that as his cue to go back to his own work. It was a good ten minutes later before he realised that Matt’s hand, the one he’d used to choose his piece of ham, had been bruised.

He stayed in that night, and watched a few YouTube videos of Daredevil. The quality was awful, and none of them really captured the sheer menace of seeing a muscled figure in black in an alleyway, Theo thought. But there was one recent one where whoever was holding the phone had managed to get a shot of the Devil getting kicked hard in the knee – he took down the mugger he was beating up anyway, but then he limped off into the shadows.

Theo checked the date. It had been from just the previous week. Just the day before Matt had come into the office with a limp, claiming to have misjudged a curb on his way to work.

He paused the videos, and sat back to think about Matt Murdock. To really think about Matt, in isolation from Foggy, which felt weird.

Theo had been prepared to hate Matt before he met him, purely because of the way Foggy had talked about his new roommate, but there had in truth not been much to hate. There hadn’t been much to _love_ , either, not to start with; Matt had held himself so tightly controlled the first few visits to the Nelson household that it had been difficult for any of them to break through his careful politeness. In smaller groups he’d loosened up, but he’d always been happy to let Foggy take the lead.

From Foggy, Theo had learned the important details about Matt’s truly fucked-up childhood – accident, blindness, murdered dad, orphanage – and he’d never pressed for more. He hadn’t wanted to know more. In truth, now that he thought about it, he’d never bothered to think much about Matt beyond the key facts of him being Foggy’s best friend, clever, good-looking, blind, a lawyer, liked jazz best, was a bit picky about his food. He hadn’t stopped to wonder what being blind meant for Matt, if navigating the city did mean he ran into curbs or tripped up stairs or found grocery shopping difficult.

And yet, Theo realised, he’d never thought of Matt as being disabled. He was just Matt, who used a cane and read with his fingers. On balance, it actually seemed more likely that somehow his brother’s best friend was a super-vigilante than he’d suddenly developed a severe dose of clumsiness.

Didn’t it?

He got into the butcher’s early the next morning, hoping that Matt would be first in so he could clear things up. And Matt was first in, with a bandage showing under the sleeve of his shirt. Theo let him go up to the office, and followed.

“Do you want something, Theo?” Matt asked. He was in the process of unpacking his bag and turning on his computer and his Braille reader.

Theo nodded. “I nodded,” he said. “Erm. Um.”

Matt paused, and almost looked up at Theo from under his shades. “Are you all right?” he queried. “You sound … nervous.”

“Don’t hit me, all right,” Theo said. “Okay. So. I had this crazy notion that maybe you’re Daredevil.”

He waited.

Matt straightened a pile of files on his desk, and then came round it and perched on the front. “Why would I hit you?” he asked.

“Because, um, your knuckles are all bruised?” Theo said. “Like you hit things a lot.”

“I go to my dad’s old boxing gym a lot,” Matt said. “Use the punching bag. Sometimes it punches back.” He gestured at a mark on his face.

“Right.” Theo felt suddenly ridiculous. “Of course you’re not Daredevil.” He looked at Matt. “Sorry, man.”

Matt shrugged. “It’s fine. Mostly I’m flattered, I guess. Not many people would have thought a blind man could do whatever Daredevil’s supposed to be able to do.”

Theo apologised again, and went back to the deli, shaking his head at himself.

It turned into a long day, with lots of customers and a few stock problems to solve. Foggy and Karen had both left and Theo was finishing up the accounting for the day when Matt came downstairs, cane in hand, bag on shoulder and glasses on as usual.

“See you tomorrow, Matt,” Theo said, trying to be normal.

Matt stopped, and turned, and then came to the table and pulled out a chair, all smoothly without fumbling for anything. He sat down, and seemed to be trying to say something. Theo half-closed his laptop.

“If this is about this morning …” he said.

“It is.” Matt put his hands together on the table top. “Foggy told me to speak to you. He says you risked a lot, over Fisk. That you’ve given us a home here. Th – that I shouldn’t lie to you too.”

Theo felt his heartrate accelerate and his palms go clammy.

“You were right,” Matt continued.

There was silence. Theo closed his laptop fully. “Lie to me too?” he asked.

“I lied to Foggy and Karen, for a long time,” Matt said. “It’s what we argued about. Why the firm – the first time – why it failed.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Theo asked. “I mean, I did wonder, but it still seems …”

Matt leaned back in his chair. “When you told us about your meeting with Daredevil,” he said, “you didn’t say anything about what you told him. That you’d be mad if Foggy got hurt. Or me. You didn’t say either that the Devil promised to keep us safe.” His mouth turned up at the edges.

“I’ll struggle to keep that one. I’ll keep Foggy safe, but I’m not very good at keeping myself out of trouble. I’ll keep you safe too, if I can,” he added.

“Like you did the other night,” Theo breathed.

“Yeah.” Matt stood up in a fluid movement and pushed his chair back under the table neatly. “It’s late, and I need to go. If you want to know more, ask Fog. If you run into trouble out there again, shout. I’ll hear you.”

He nodded at Theo and left.

Theo took several deep breaths, staring at the door. Matt Murdock was Daredevil. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was Matt Murdock. The world had turned on its axis, but somehow, it was all okay.

He opened his laptop again, and got back to the accounts.


End file.
